Building Safety and Social Housing The Secretary of State for
Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Michael Gove) I beg to move,
That this House has considered building safety and social housing.
Six years on from the night of 14 June 2017, we remember all those
affected by the fire at Grenfell Tower. Six years on, 72 months on,
72 lives lost, and thousands more—bereaved families and residents
in the north Kensington community—whose grief endures. I...Request free trial
Building Safety and
Social Housing
The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
()
I beg to move,
That this House has considered building safety and social
housing.
Six years on from the night of 14 June 2017, we remember all
those affected by the fire at Grenfell Tower. Six years on, 72
months on, 72 lives lost, and thousands more—bereaved families
and residents in the north Kensington community—whose grief
endures. I know that I speak for not just me, but right hon. and
hon. Members across this House, when I say that those most
affected by the fire are never far from our thoughts and prayers.
It is a particular honour to welcome survivors and bereaved
family members to the Gallery for today’s debate, including
representatives from Grenfell United and Grenfell Next of
Kin.
It takes determination and courage to come and be counted, and to
remain so resolute. Like so many in this House, I have been
humbled to meet Grenfell community members and know the power of
their testimony. Each has their own compelling and moving story
to tell, and their own harrowing and unforgettable perspective on
events that night. They have been united in their fight to
uncover the truth and bring about change, and I hope that we in
Government and across this House have been able to listen and to
learn from them. I want to take this opportunity, as I do at
every opportunity, to apologise again for the role of the
Government and others in failings that allowed the horrifying
events of 14 June 2017 to unfold. As you will hear today, Madam
Deputy Speaker, I share their determination to see the truth
uncovered, make change happen, and have all those responsible
held to account so that justice is delivered.
The need for all of us in Government to learn from—and never
repeat—the scandalous mistakes of Grenfell could not be more
profound. I was clear, I hope, when I first became Secretary of
State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, that discharging
my responsibilities to those most affected by this tragedy by
honouring their loved ones with a worthy legacy was my absolute
priority. That meant putting right some of the many wrongs that
the bereaved survivors and immediate community have had to face
and endure. I am pleased to be joined in that mission by my
ministerial colleagues: the Minister of State for Housing and
Planning, my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (), and my noble Friend , who was first
appointed by my predecessor to the independent Grenfell recovery
taskforce in the immediate aftermath of the fire. Her long
experience of representing the needs of all residents as a former
council leader has been invaluable, and I am deeply grateful to
Jane for her work.
I am also pleased that today, the House has the opportunity to
both honour the Grenfell community and continue to hold the
Government to account. As I said last year, I want this debate to
take place annually, so that there is no let-up in the
opportunities for scrutiny of this Government’s actions and those
of future Governments. It is vital that everyone across this
House can satisfy themselves that the Government are meeting
their commitments and lasting change is being made. Like all
Governments, we should be judged on our actions, not just our
words, and all actors—including this Government—must take on
board some quite tough lessons to ensure that such a tragedy
never happens again.
It is clear that the past actions of many fell well short of the
standards that the Grenfell community—the bereaved survivors and
local residents—deserved. That is why, with my Department, I
remain wholly committed to supporting the independent Grenfell
Tower inquiry, through which we may understand the truth about
the circumstances leading to the tragedy and see justice
delivered for the Grenfell community. That community was
unforgivably and inexcusably let down. Evidence given before the
inquiry and reporting by distinguished journalists such as Peter
Apps point out that in the months and years before the fire,
people’s concerns went unheard and ignored, and in the days and
weeks after the fire, the institutions that were supposed to help
victims were found wanting. I hope that uncovering the
circumstances that led to the fire will bring at least some
relief and comfort. With the inquiry having concluded its oral
hearings last year, Sir Martin Moore-Bick and his inquiry team
are now preparing their final report and recommendations. Also
importantly, the independent Metropolitan police investigation
into potential criminality continues in parallel. It is of the
utmost importance to community members that that investigation is
able to operate as they seek the justice that they deserve.
The Government have accepted in principle all the recommendations
in the Grenfell Tower inquiry’s phase 1 report. So far, we have
implemented 10 of the 15 recommendations focused on central
Government; a significant amount has been done, but there is more
to do. The remaining five recommendations are in progress, and I
continue to work closely with the Home Secretary to make sure
that we deliver on all of them, particularly the recommendation
to mandate personal emergency evacuation plans—PEEPs—for disabled
residents. One feature of the Grenfell tragedy was the way in
which those living with disabilities were particularly
vulnerable.
(Leeds East) (Lab)
As the Secretary of State has said, it is now six years since the
Grenfell fire, but new data gathered by Inside Housing shows that
only a fraction of high-rise social housing blocks—fewer than one
in five—have been retrofitted with sprinklers or fire alarms. A
lack of funding is a key reason for that, so can the Government
really claim that they are doing everything possible to prevent
another Grenfell when people are still living in high rises
without those protections?
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that. I know
he has a lifelong interest in social housing and cares very
deeply about the fates of tenants in those conditions. I would
never say that we have done everything that we should. I do
believe that significant progress has been made, not least in
remediating high-rise buildings and making sure that everyone who
should plays their part. I will say a little bit more about it in
a moment, but he is right to focus on how, when it comes to fire
safety, it is not just the external cladding, which was of course
the principal cause of the fire at Grenfell, but internal safety
measures that we need to look at. Has progress been fast enough?
No. Does resource need to be allocated? Yes. So I do agree with
him that more requires to be done.
I was reflecting, just before that very helpful intervention, on
the particular fate that disabled residents faced at Grenfell,
and the vital importance of making sure that we have personal
emergency evacuation plans in place. I hope to be able to update
the House with the Home Secretary in due course.
As the hon. Gentleman has pointed out, a broad range of issues
affect building safety overall. Of course, one finding of the
Grenfell Tower inquiry will inevitably be a recognition of
systemic failures in the way in which we dealt with building
safety, because the public, residents and indeed the Government
put their faith in the building and approving of high-rise blocks
and in the construction products being supplied for those
high-rise blocks. We believed that the law was being followed and
that the right thing was being done, but this trust was misplaced
and abused. Industry profits, as we now know, were prioritised
over safety and the safeguards that should have been observed
were flouted.
We are now, with the help of all parties in this House, fixing
the broken building safety system and we are seeking redress. I
have been clear that those responsible—those at the apex of the
building industry—must take responsibility. As of today, a total
of 49 developers, including the 10 largest house builders, have
signed our developer remediation contract, and I am grateful to
them for showing such leadership. All developers that have signed
the contract now have a legal duty to get on with
remediation.
(Oxford West and Abingdon)
(LD)
As I am sure the Secretary of State knows, one key recommendation
of the Hackitt review was to set up the Building Safety
Regulator. So he will understand the concern when amendments have
been tabled to the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill giving the
Secretary of State powers to scrap the building safety regime via
a statutory instrument. If the No. 1 thing that the state needs
to do is to keep its citizen safe, can he explain why those
amendments have been tabled, and under what circumstances he
would use that power to get rid of that regulator without proper
scrutiny in this House?
I absolutely would never do anything to undermine the position of
the Building Safety Regulator. Indeed, I have been working with
colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions and the Health
and Safety Executive to make sure that we have the right team in
place, the right person as regulator and the right powers for the
regulator. All the legislation that we are bringing forward—not
just the previous building safety legislation, but the
Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill—is designed to strengthen the
hand of the regulator. I would be delighted to talk to the hon.
Lady in greater detail outside this House to provide
reassurance.
(Glasgow South West)
(SNP)
The Secretary of State talks about the remediation of buildings.
He knows the interest of a company in Glasgow South West that
does great work in removing cladding and so on, but it has come
across stumbling blocks with insurance companies and insurance
premiums. Could he say a bit about the discussions he has had
with the insurance industry to make sure that this work is
done?
Yes, the hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. In talking
about the shared responsibility that so many have, I have
stressed that the Government have a responsibility, as does the
construction sector, and insurance companies certainly do. It is
the case that insurance companies, unfortunately, are charging
premiums that I believe are way above what they should be. That
is impeding the capacity of individuals to get on with their
lives and it is imposing costs that are unnecessary. The
Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and
Communities, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire
(), who is the Minister responsible for the
implementation of the building safety regime, has been talking to
the Association of British Insurers, individual insurance
companies and insurance brokers to try to make progress. There
has not been as much as I would like, but, again, I will update
the House in due course, as I know my hon. Friend will as
well.
I mentioned developers, and it is the case that developers are
taking responsibility for all the necessary work to address
life-critical fire safety defects in buildings of over 11 metres
high that they either developed or refurbished in England during
the 30 years to 5 April 2022. There are more than 1,100 buildings
in scope that are unsafe, and the cost will be £2 billion. Again,
I am grateful to developers for shouldering that responsibility.
Developers must also keep residents informed about the progress
of these works. As I know from my own constituency, it is
absolutely vital that residents are involved in that process.
(Erith and Thamesmead)
(Lab)
I recognise that the Government have started to do some work,
particularly on ACM cladding on buildings over 18 metres high,
but it has been very slow. Some of the work on 11 to 18 high
metre buildings is some distance away. That is really worrying
for homeowners who are trapped in those properties. Can the
Minister look at how that could be speeded up? Has work been done
to look at different types of cladding, because different types
of cladding other than ACM are also unsafe?
The hon. Lady raises two important points. Yes, absolutely, we
are now moving to accelerate support for those living in
buildings between 11 and 18 metres high. The cladding scheme we
are bringing forward has all the energy that Homes England, the
Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and
Communities, my hon. Friend Member for North East Derbyshire
(), and the Department can deploy behind it. On her
second point, of course it is the case that, while ACM was
responsible for this particularly horrific tragedy, and also
previously responsible for fires in the Gulf and elsewhere, there
are other forms of cladding that are also a risk and that we need
to remove and have been removing.
(Devizes) (Con)
I also pay tribute to the families and the survivors who have
come here today. While the Secretary of State is rightly focusing
on the systemic failures that led to this disaster and on the
responsibility of the big players, the agencies and indeed the
Government themselves in the lead-up to the disaster and in the
immediate aftermath, will he pay tribute to the community groups
that stepped forward so impressively on the ground, including
some council workers—I am thinking of councillors such as David
Lindsay and others? Does he recognise that they were not given a
proper voice in the period preceding the fire and that we should
do more to engage community groups?
Yes, and I am so grateful to my hon. Friend for making that
point. One of the things that struck me about the North
Kensington community and all those affected is the way in which
community groups have played such an important part. There are
faith groups, including the local Roman Catholic, the local
Anglican and the local Methodist churches, and the Al-Manaar
mosque. Pre-existing charities such as the Rugby Portobello Trust
have been very energetic in providing support, but there is a
wealth of other groups, such as the Lancaster West residents
association. Of course, those formed in the shadow of the
tragedy, such as Grenfell United and Grenfell Next of Kin, all
testify to a rich social fabric and to community activism of the
best kind. I know he has championed that; he knows—even though he
now represents a seat in the west of England—that the work he did
with the West London Zone, which is committed to improving social
mobility in that area, was an exemplar.
On building safety, I must make it clear that the developers will
be held to account for their actions. Those who have made these
commitments—again, I am grateful to them—are now eligible to join
our new responsible actors scheme. Subject to the will of
Parliament, the scheme will come into being this summer.
We are using other levers to hold the worst actors to account
over building safety, because it is not just developers who share
in the responsibility for putting things right. We are pursuing
the most egregious cases of people who have a
responsibility—freeholders and others—through our new Recovery
Strategy Unit, and other means have yielded or are beginning to
yield results. To date, the RSU has started legal activity
against three significant freeholders that have responsibility
for 19 buildings to protect residents and to ensure safety. These
include Wallis Partnership Group Ltd and Grey GR Ltd Partnership,
a company ultimately owned by Railpen Ltd. It is vital that all
of us recognise that, when it comes to the responsibilities of
pension fund trustees, which are the freehold owners in this
case, they have a responsibility not just to the beneficiaries of
the pension fund, but to those who are living in the homes whose
freeholds they own.
Critically, we are also bringing pressure to bear on those
involved in the manufacture of the construction products that
were there, and were used and abused, in the run-up to the
Grenfell tragedy. Three construction project giants—Kingspan,
Arconic and Saint-Gobain, the parent company of Celotex—are all
coming under pressure. In the last few months, I have written to
these companies and invited them to meet me to explain their
plans to contribute financially to remediation works on unsafe
buildings. I have also written to their investors and assured
them that the sights of my Department are trained on these
manufacturers, and that there will be legal and commercial
consequences should they fail to make satisfactory arrangements.
I believe that responsible investors can join all of us in this
House in bringing pressure to bear, because their wider
obligations to society and their commercial interests are one and
the same.
As the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead () mentioned, we need to
work together to ensure not just that the most serious safety
problems are dealt with, but that all safety problems are dealt
with. However, it is the case that people living in high-rise
buildings with the most dangerous cladding, ACM cladding—like
that on Grenfell Tower—have received the support and the change
needed. Some 96% of the buildings with ACM cladding have now been
made safe, or have work under way, and all buildings in the
social housing sector with ACM cladding have been addressed.
The Building Safety Act, as the hon. Member for Oxford West and
Abingdon (), speaking for the Liberal
Democrats pointed out, has given us additional regulatory powers,
which we shall not hesitate to use. The new building safety
regulator will be responsible for overseeing building safety in
residential buildings above 18 metres, and it will take
enforcement action where necessary.
Building safety, of course, is at the heart of the Grenfell
tragedy, but I want to make two other brief points before
yielding the floor to others. One is the vital importance of
making sure that all of us recall how important it is to listen
to the voices of those in social housing. For too long, the
voices of too many social housing tenants were ignored. People
living in substandard homes told us what was wrong. They
described appalling conditions. They enumerated with distressing
accuracy the dangerous oversights that led them to feel unsafe in
the place that they should have felt most secure. We must never
let those voices go unheeded again. We—all of us—must be guided
by them as we improve the living conditions and rights of social
housing tenants across the United Kingdom.
At last year’s debate, I had just announced that the Social
Housing (Regulation) Bill in the Queen’s Speech was due to be
debated in both our Houses. I am pleased that we are now on the
verge of Royal Assent. The Bill codifies our commitment to
transform the experience of social housing residents, ensuring
that landlords deliver the safe and decent homes that all
residents should expect. The legislation was brought forward, of
course, as a direct response to concerns raised by members of the
Grenfell community, but as that legislation passed through both
Houses, we have been forcibly reminded about the need to
strengthen it further.
The tragic death of Awaab Ishak in 2020, aged just two, as a
result of respiratory conditions generated by the grotesque
circumstances in which he was being brought up by the housing
association that should have attacked damp and mould far earlier
has also led to changes to that legislation. Awaab’s law now
requires social landlords to deal with damp and mould complaints
to a strict timetable and will ensure that all tenants have the
protection that they deserve.
Thanks to the work of Grenfell United and others, that Bill
includes provisions to ensure the professionalisation of the
housing sector—a consistent demand of the bereaved residents and
survivors, and a demand consistent with making sure that those
who work in housing get the recognition and, indeed, the respect
they deserve as they acquire that additional qualification.
A lot of us MPs get a lot of housing cases, and I still get cases
in which constituents are being blamed for the type of
accommodation that they live in. I have cases right now where
constituents are being blamed for their lifestyle. This is not
filtering through, Minister. This is a real problem, and it is
important that, while you are talking about all the things that
you are achieving, there is still a lot of work to be done—
Madam Deputy Speaker ( )
Order. It is important to address the Minister not directly, but
through me.
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. Issues of damp and mould are
not a consequence of lifestyle. In fact, when that allegation is
made, there is sometimes behind it an unhappy and prejudiced
attitude towards some communities and some individuals. We need
to call that out, and the housing ombudsman has been clear.
I should also say that I do not believe that I should take credit
for these steps; it is about this House and everyone here who has
worked together with people outside this House, including
Grenfell United, Awaab Ishak’s family, campaigning journalists
such as Daniel Hewitt and Vicky Spratt and, above all, the
campaigner Kwajo Tweneboa. I think he has done far more than any
Minister has to ensure that we get the message on social
housing.
The final thing that I want to cover are the particular needs of
the community itself. The Grenfell tragedy encapsulated what had
gone wrong with our building safety system and what had gone
wrong with the way we treat people in social housing. But there
are real needs that the community continues to feel. I want to
reaffirm the commitment made by my right hon. Friend the Member
for Maidenhead (Mrs May), the former Prime Minister, in the
terrible aftermath of the fire. She said that the Government
would be there in that community long after the cameras stopped
rolling. She has taken a close personal interest in ensuring that
we continue to support the community. Baroness Scott and I will
continue to work with other arms of Government, the Royal Borough
of Kensington and Chelsea, the NHS, and the independent Grenfell
Tower Memorial Commission to ensure that the community has the
ongoing support that it needs through the conclusion of the
inquiry and beyond.
The tragedy at Grenfell Tower was one of the worst civilian
tragedies in our history, and the bereaved survivors and
immediate community will never forget, nor should they, and nor
should we. We seek in this debate and in the work of Government
and Parliament not only to honour the memory of those who died,
but to build a legacy in their name: safer and greener homes,
better social housing, and a lasting commitment to those affected
by these terrible events. This Government, this House and,
indeed, our whole country have a responsibility and a stake in
the future of Grenfell and the community. Across this House, we
have pledged to remember the lives lost and to seek truth in
their names, and we will honour them by the legacy they
inspire.
Madam Deputy Speaker ( )
I call the shadow Minister, .
1.26pm
(Greenwich and Woolwich)
(Lab)
The fire that engulfed Grenfell Tower on 14 June 2017 killed 72
people—18 were children and many, as the Secretary of State said,
were disabled. The inferno wiped out entire families, ripped
others apart and traumatised a community. The fear that Grenfell
residents must have felt on that night is truly unimaginable, and
those who survived will be forever scarred by what they
experienced.
In the days after the fire, as pictures of the smouldering and
charred building were broadcast across the country and the world,
there was a collective feeling across Britain that not only did
we now have no choice but to confront issues that had been
disregarded for far too long, but that the sheer horror of what
happened would not allow us to forget. But the truth is that even
events as traumatic as Grenfell will fade from our collective
consciousness unless we work to ensure they are remembered. For
that reason alone, this debate is essential. While we lament the
fact that the Government did not ensure that it took place on or
around the anniversary date, we nevertheless welcome the fact
that we have the opportunity today to commemorate the fire and
its victims, to consider again the circumstances leading up to
and surrounding it, and to debate its wider ramifications.
On 14 June this year, I took part in the Grenfell silent walk, as
did several other hon. Members present. As it always is, it was a
profoundly moving experience. At the end of the walk, the
magnitude of the human loss is brought painfully home as the
names of each and every one of the 72 men, women and children who
perished in the fire are slowly and methodically called out to
those assembled in stillness. But this year’s walk felt
different, because alongside the usual grief and loss, one could
sense a palpable anger among the crowd of an intensity that I
have not witnessed before. Listening to those who spoke at the
rally near the base of the tower at the end of the walk, it was
clear that that anger is borne not only from the ever-present
knowledge that what happened could have been avoided if shortcuts
were not taken, reckless and unforgivable decisions were not
made, and repeated warnings were not ignored, but from the fact
that, six years on, the prospect of justice appears so
distant.
On these Benches, we recognise, as we always have, the need to
await the final report of the Grenfell Tower inquiry, but we
understand the frustration and outrage that the community
evidently feels as the years pass by without justice having been
secured for their loved ones. The pursuit of justice will go on,
as it must, yet the survivors, the bereaved and the wider
Grenfell community, to whom the Opposition again pay tribute
today, have always been clear that securing wider change and a
lasting legacy is equally important to them. Amid all the
setbacks and frustrations that they have experienced, it is
important that we recognise that they have already helped to
change things for the better. But when it comes to decisively and
markedly improving standards in social housing and making sure
that all buildings across the country are safe, there is still so
much more to be done.
When it comes to improving the quality of social housing,
tangible progress has been made over the course of the past 12
months. We pressed for it to be strengthened further, but we have
worked with the Government to ensure the rapid passage of the
Social Housing (Regulation) Bill through this place. Improved as
it was by a number of Government concessions, we very much look
forward to it receiving Royal Assent in the near future.
As the Secretary of State will know, operationalising that Bill
will require a number of further measures, including determining
the specific requirements that will flow from Awaab’s law;
reviewing existing guidance on the health impacts of damp and
mould in homes; and putting in place the new consumer regulation
regime and updated regulatory standards. We would be grateful if
the Government updated the House during the debate on progress on
all those fronts.
While overhauling the regulation of social housing is a necessary
step to improving its quality across England, legislation alone
is unlikely to be enough. We recognise that many social landlords
provide good-quality, safe and secure homes in which individuals
and families can and do thrive. We also appreciate fully the
challenging context in which social landlords have had to operate
over recent years, including the significant costs of building
safety remediation works, but we are convinced that many social
landlords need to ask themselves difficult, but essential
questions about the quality of some of the homes they provide and
the service their tenants receive, as well as examining afresh
their culture and processes. The recently published “Better
Social Housing Review”, overseen by the National Housing
Federation and the Chartered Institute of Housing, is a welcome
development in that regard, and we look forward to seeing how
individual providers implement its recommendations over the
coming months and years.
We also recognise that progress has been made over the past year
when it comes to addressing the building safety crisis. I
particularly welcome the Secretary of State’s comments on product
manufacturers. We encourage him to explore and exhaust all
possible options that the Government have to hold them to
account. In the course of the past year, some leaseholders have
been given legal protection; some developers have entered into a
legal agreement to remediate unsafe buildings that they have
either constructed or refurbished; and some lenders have agreed
to offer mortgages on blocks of flats with safety issues, but if
we ask the hundreds of thousands of people still living in unsafe
buildings across the country whether they expect the building
safety crisis as it affects them to be resolved fully by this
time next year or even this time two years hence, the answer we
will receive from the vast majority is a resounding no.
The Secretary of State is right that all ACM issues on social
housing blocks have been resolved, but we still do not know the
full extent of the crisis as it affects social homes, because
providers are ineligible to apply for support unless their
financial viability is threatened. The overall pace of
remediation across the country remains glacial. Shamefully,
Grenfell-style ACM cladding, which should not be on any building
in this country or any other country, is still present on 40
high-rise buildings in England six years on, and just 37 non-ACM
buildings have been fully remediated out of the 1,225 that made
applications to the building safety fund.
All the evidence suggests that only a small proportion of
leaseholders in unsafe buildings have seen remediation works
begin and a far larger proportion has no identified date for the
commencement of works and no estimated timescale for completion,
including many in buildings covered by the developer remediation
contract. As a result, despite some lenders being willing in
principle to offer mortgages, six years on from Grenfell the
majority of leaseholders in privately-owned buildings are still
trapped. Within their captivity, many are being bled dry by
service charges that more often than not have escalated sharply
as a result of soaring buildings insurance premiums. That is a
scandal that the Government have singularly failed to step in and
decisively resolve over multiple years, despite continuous
pleading from Members from across the House.
(Worthing West) (Con)
I apologise for not being here for the first words of the debate.
Can I confirm that the hon. Gentleman is saying that what
leaseholders need is what social tenants have got: the problem
needs to be identified and it needs to be fixed, and then the
funding should happen? To wait for the funding is the wrong way
round.
I hope the Father of the House will accept that we have argued
consistently since the start of this crisis that the Government
should step in and fund and then use their power to recover as we
go forward, because too many leaseholders are trapped. That is
not just in the context of this problem, but due to the wider
inequities of the leasehold system, and we need to tackle that
problem in due course.
I thank the shadow Minister for his thoughtful and detailed
remarks. Taking him back to a point he made about ACM cladding,
survivors of the Grenfell fire and the bereaved are keen to see
ACM cladding banned globally. As he mentioned, it is on 40 blocks
in the UK as it stands. Would he like to see it effectively
banned globally and removed from those 40 blocks in this
country?
ACM should not be on any building in England six years after the
fire, and it is shameful that it is, but my hon. Friend is right.
The Government should use their authority and the experience they
have gleaned over the past six years to make the case worldwide,
because this material should not be on any building. It is
dangerous, and it should never have been put up in the first
place.
While all trapped leaseholders are feeling the strain, in
relative terms some are better off than others, because the
Government made the political choice to provide some with legal
protection from the costs of historic non-cladding defects, while
leaving others exposed to bills that will not only lead to
financial ruin in many instances, but will have a material impact
on the progress of remediation in buildings where such
non-qualifying leaseholders are large in number. Even at this
late stage, I urge the Secretary of State to reconsider the
arbitrary division of blameless leaseholders into those who
qualify for protection under the law and those who do not, as
well as beseeching him to ensure that the Government finally grip
and drive from the centre an accelerated programme of remediation
across the country.
To conclude, six years on from the horror of Grenfell, things
have changed, but they have not changed anywhere near enough. If
we are to ensure that everyone has a secure, decent, affordable
and safe home in which to live, far more still needs to be done,
and done quickly. If it is not, we will be back here again next
year, marking the seventh anniversary of the fire, still
bemoaning the fact that too many social tenants are being let
down and too many buildings are not being made safe, with the
lives of too many blameless leaseholders destroyed. We owe it to
the survivors, the bereaved, the wider Grenfell community and the
legacy they want to see established to ensure that that is not
the case.
Madam Deputy Speaker ( )
I call the SNP spokesperson.
1.36pm
(Glasgow South West)
(SNP)
Like others, our thoughts and prayers go to the Grenfell
community as we remember them in this debate. It is worth
remembering that the Grenfell fire killed 72 people due to
flammable cladding, and this House remembers the lives that were
lost. It is also worth remembering that during the platinum
jubilee celebrations, 72 seats were left unfilled at a street
party to remind the community of the lives lost. Each place at
the table was set with a name card, napkin, plate, cup and flag.
Yvette Williams, a Justice4Grenfell campaigner, said:
“Five years on, a toothless public inquiry and millions still
trapped in their homes by flammable cladding—and still no
justice. There have been no lessons learned and little action
taken. As people up and down the country enjoy street parties, as
they quite rightly should, we want to let the powers that be know
that our community will always remember the 72 who died
needlessly here that night.”
A total of 6,247 people were referred to the dedicated NHS
Grenfell health and wellbeing service. Of those, 1,476 were
children. Dr Sara Northey, who runs therapy for children and
young people at the dedicated NHS Grenfell health and wellbeing
service, has described the scale of the trauma as
“unprecedented”. She said:
“This is an unusual trauma as it affected a whole community and
is definitely ongoing. Grief doesn’t just go away. But what is
striking is also the strength people have in the relationships
here and the connection people have. At the heart of the trauma
is a shattering of safety. We have seen a lot of avoidance of
things that remind children of fire. A bonfire or candles on a
birthday cake can be quite triggering. Some are worried about
electronics in the home and need to check things are switched
off. Children are being, kind of, hyperaware of safety in a way
that most children don’t have to be.”
I hope that Ministers will tell the House that, while it is
important that we concentrate on building safety, they are
committed to ensuring that these health and wellbeing services
will still be there and maintained to help the people of
Grenfell. As the Secretary of State rightly said, there should be
an annual debate not just to discuss building health and safety,
but it should also ensure that the health and wellbeing of that
community is maintained.
indicated assent.
I see that the Secretary of State agrees; I thank him for
that.
The Scottish Government are spending every penny of consequential
funding they receive on this programme of work, with committed
spend of £1.3 million. The Scottish cladding remediation
programme is designed to ensure that there is no cost to property
owners and residents for the procurement and production of a
single building assessment for each building. The Scottish
Government first have to carry out comprehensive and technical
assessments to understand the extent of the problem. The vast
majority of buildings in the initial phase of the Scottish
Government’s programme have secured fire engineers, and a new
streamlined process for commissioning the assessments will help
to identify at-risk buildings more quickly.
The safety of residents and homeowners in Scotland is of the
utmost priority as the Scottish Government work to tackle
cladding safety issues through our single building assessment,
which has been expanded to more than 100 buildings. We will
create a register of buildings that will provide assurance to the
public following the completion of any necessary remediation
works. If experts identify an issue that needs immediate action
to safeguard residents, the Scottish Government will take action
and expect developers to do likewise on their buildings.
This can be a complex and time-consuming programme. A number of
assessments are either at final or pre-final reporting stage,
with discussions on remediation under way. I hope that, at the
conclusion of the debate, the Minister will update the House
about the discussions that Ministers are having with the devolved
Administrations. It is about funding and the Barnett
consequentials that kick in when the UK Government spend
money.
The Scottish Government have strengthened and will continue to
strengthen the building standards system in Scotland, with the
building standards futures board established to undertake a
programme of work to strengthen the system. The Scottish
Government have legislated to improve fire safety by banning
developers from using combustible cladding on residential and
other high-risk buildings above 11 metres. Scotland was the first
part of the UK to ban the highest-risk metal composite cladding
material from any new building of any height.
Since 2005, new cladding systems on high rise blocks of flats
have had either to use non-combustible materials or pass a
large-scale fire test. The building standards legislation removes
the option of a fire test, completely prohibiting such materials
from use on domestic and other high risk buildings such as care
homes and hospitals above 11 metres. In October 2019, the
Scottish Government strengthened guidance in relation to
combustible cladding, means of escape and measures to assist the
fire service. The regulations were passed unanimously by the
Scottish Parliament to protect lives and property following the
tragic Grenfell Tower fire.
I have outlined some of the work being done in Scotland. On
behalf of the Scottish National party, I want to emphasise that
our thoughts, prayers and love go out to the Grenfell
community.
1.43pm
(Hammersmith) (Lab)
I agree with the Secretary of State that we should have an annual
Grenfell debate. It would be better to have it on, or as near as
possible to, the anniversary date; it is somewhat disrespectful
that we have waited nearly a month to have it this year. I am
sure that the silent walks will continue. I have tried to attend
them, at least on the anniversary, and I have noticed how, over
the six years, the mood has changed from grief to frustration
about the lack of progress from all sides—whether the Government
or the inquiry—and now to real anger. The shadow Minister, my
hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (), was also there, and I
am sure that he agrees on that point. I therefore do not
recognise much of what the Secretary of State said about what is
happening.
What seems to be happening is that, every year, there are more
complex issues and while there has been some degree of
resolution, more questions are raised and there are more problems
to resolve about the causes and spread of fires. That, to a large
extent, is to do with cladding, and not just ACM cladding. There
are many other reasons why fire spreads through high rise
buildings in particular. The families want to see a complete ban
on ACM cladding on all buildings not only in this country but
internationally. I hope that the Government will campaign for
that to happen, because it is not only in the UK that tragic
fires such as Grenfell have happened.
There are huge issues with the design of new buildings. That is
evolving all the time, as we see in the two-staircase issue, as
well as in remediation. It is to some extent easy to set new
building standards for new buildings—well, it can be done—but we
are lagging behind substantially in doing remedial work on
existing buildings. Much of this comes down to finance. That is
not just for individual leaseholders, who in certain
circumstances will still have to pay out large sums of money, or
where money is not forthcoming up front; it is also for social
tenants, because social landlords are not getting the same degree
of financial support as leaseholders, and social landlords have
competing priorities as to what they spend their money on.
Although I would like to, I will not take the time to deal with
all those issues. I will deal with just three issues in
detail.
First, there is the causes of fires. The cause of the Grenfell
fire was what I am holding in my hand: a crimp, which is a small
piece of wiring that costs a few pence. As I am sure people will
guess, I am not an expert in these matters, so I am grateful to
Richard Farthing, chairman of the Hammersmith Society, who has a
background in electrical and electronic manufacturing. He sent me
the expert report on the cause of the Grenfell fire. I will not
go through all the technical details, but its short conclusion
is:
“A probable cause of the fire is a poor crimp connection…an
overheated wire connector within the compressor relay compartment
for the fridge freezer (Hotpoint Model FF175BP) from Flat
16.”
It is as simple as that: a little component, costing a matter of
pennies, which was either not fitted properly or not manufactured
properly, caused a fire that led to the deaths of 72 people. Of
course, there were many other issues of causation in Grenfell and
elsewhere, but that draws attention to the lack of quality
control in manufacturing processes.
The second issue on cause, which I encounter every month—not a
month goes by when I do not hear about this, usually in a social
housing block of flats in my constituency—is fires caused by
lithium batteries. I say fires, but they are usually explosions.
This is an extraordinary problem that the London Fire Brigade
and, I am sure, fire brigades across the country are very much
aware of.
A couple of weeks ago, three people were taken to hospital after
a fire broke out in a flat in West Kensington due to a converted
e-bike catching fire. What happens is that people buy a bike and
want to convert it into an e-bike, so they buy a kit and a
battery. Many of these things are bought second hand and are
cheap, with faults in manufacture, so they overheat and literally
explode. Anyone who does not believe me should look at the London
Fire Brigade’s Twitter feed, where they will see explosions that
completely engulf a room of a flat—sometimes the whole
flat—within seconds. If compartmentalisation works—the fire is
kept in that flat because of the construction of the doors and
walls—and the occupants of the flat escape, there may be no
serious injuries, but if that does not happen and the fire
spreads, as it quite easily can, it is almost impossible to
contain. That is about a lack of regulation. Why are we allowing
such kits to be sold? Why are we allowing people to use them in
high-rise buildings in that way? As I said, probably once a month
I go and view the site of a fire caused by exactly that somewhere
in my constituency, and it is only a matter of time before there
are more fatalities. There have been fatalities through lithium
batteries in that way.
The third issue on cause again comes from personal experience.
The year before Grenfell, in a high-rise block of flats,
Shepherd’s Court, on Shepherd’s Bush Green, a faulty tumble dryer
caught fire and destroyed the flat. Hundreds of thousands of them
were manufactured, mainly by a large company called Whirlpool
under names such as Hotpoint and Indesit. They were cheaply made,
cheap to buy and often sold second hand, and they are causing
hundreds if not thousands of fires across the country. There is a
lack of design prowess. Whether it is the crimp, quality control,
the batteries, lack of regulation or lack of design, there is a
crisis across the manufacturing and design sector.
I commend to the Secretary of State a newly published book by
Professor Shane Ewen of Leeds Beckett University, “Before
Grenfell: Fire, Safety and Deregulation in Twentieth-Century
Britain”. It says:
“the Grenfell Tower fire was a disaster foretold—the culmination
of successive decades of deregulation, corporate greed and
institutional failure to learn from the lessons of past
multiple-fatality fires.”
It is a very good read and I recommend it to the Secretary of
State. It indicates that the crisis did not begin and certainly
did not end with Grenfell, but has been going on a long time—the
result of either deliberate Government policy or Government
neglect to take care of the issues.
The second issue is design. As is often the case, I am grateful
to the Royal Institute of British Architects, which has been
pushing the issues of design and remedial work to high-rise
buildings. Its particular ask is the trigger point for a second
staircase. I think that people are familiar with the issue of
having at least two staircases. Extraordinarily, hitherto,
whereas non-residential buildings over 11 metres had to have a
second staircase, a residential building can be as tall as you
like. I know that because just overlooking my constituency in
north Acton is a 50-plus-storey, newly constructed block that has
one staircase in it. I am pleased to say that, due to the action
of the Major of London, those seeking planning permission for
blocks of flats over 30 metres are required to go back and put in
a second staircase. A submission from RIBA, experts in this
field, states that that should apply to any residential building
over 18 metres. I would like the Government to adopt that.
When refurbishing, it may be difficult to put in a second
staircase. There, the ask is that evacuation lifts, sprinklers
and centrally addressable fire alarm systems be put in. Those do
not have to be fire alarms that any resident can activate. In the
wake of the Grenfell tragedy, the “stay put” policy increasingly
does not work. I understand why it was maintained, and it works
in many cases, but it does not work if residents—completely
understandably—fear for their lives and evacuate the building. If
a decision is made to evacuate a building, there has to be a way
of telling people in that building. Alarm systems that are
controllable at least by the fire service are an important part
of that equation. I cannot for the life of me think why we are
not retrofitting sprinklers into high-rise buildings. They will
stop 99% of fires. Many, many tragedies could be avoided if that
happened.
My final point is the consequence. This debate is partly about
social housing more generally, but I am not sure we have time to
go into all aspects of that. I would like to address the
crossover between fire safety and social housing providers, and
the pressures on their resources. I was prompted to do so after
reading an extraordinary interview that the Housing Minister, the
hon. Member for Redditch (), gave to Inside Housing a
couple of days ago. It states:
“When asked what housing associations should prioritise without
additional funding from government, and facing pressure to build,
retrofit stock and meet building safety and historic disrepair
costs, Ms Maclean replied: ‘It’s up to them.’”
That shows an absolute tin ear to the current pressures on social
landlords. They want to develop new stock—again, completely
contrary to what the Housing Minister said in that interview, the
number of social rented homes that this Government have created
is appalling low, standing at 7,644 last year. She said in the
same interview:
“We’ve delivered more social rented homes in this government than
under the last Labour government.”
These facts are easily discoverable: the current Government have
built less than half the number built by the previous Labour
Government.
That is only one aspect of the crisis in social housing. We have
heard about damp, mould and disrepair, which need to be dealt
with. Retrofitting needs to be dealt with—at a cost of about £23
billion—as well as building safety, which is what we are talking
about today. Why are social housing landlords in such a plight?
The answer is that they lost 60% of the social housing grant
under the austerity Government. Due to rent controls and other
matters, they are unable to come up with the resources they need.
It is so bad that the smaller associations are going under or are
having to merge into much larger associations.
The whole sector is being distorted by the financial pressures.
The big landlord group G15 says that out of the £6 billion it
will need to pay for remedial work due to fire safety measures,
it will have to find £4 billion itself. That means that its
tenants and leaseholders will have to find that money, because
there is no other readily available source. Shepherds Bush
Housing Group, a formerly well-respected local medium-sized
housing association, has just had to be taken over by Guinness, a
much larger association, because it simply cannot financially
survive with all the pressures on it.
There is an existential threat to the social housing market.
Previous Conservative Governments decided to move from council
housing to housing associations in a big way. The Government will
have to rethink where they are on those issues because it is no
longer sustainable for housing associations to go forward with
the financial support that they have.
When the Housing Minister winds up the debate, perhaps she will
correct some of the errors that she made in that interview, and
perhaps she will address a more listening ear to social
landlords. They perform an extremely important function. I heard
everything the Secretary of State said about that; the rhetoric
is all well and good, but the actuality is that tenants are
living in poor conditions and people are in temporary
accommodation —we have the highest levels ever—because no decent
social housing is being built and maintained in this country.
That is what tenants and leaseholders are looking for, not warm
words and empty rhetoric.
1.58pm
(Putney) (Lab)
I welcome this debate, six years on from the Grenfell tragedy. No
amount of words and speeches can remove the grief and pain
inflicted on the families and friends of the 72 lives lost to the
fire. We will never forget. The scars will be with the community
and with our nation for generations to come. I pay tribute to the
families, survivors, the community and Grenfell United for their
voice and for campaigning so consistently—despite their own
grief—for change, transparency and justice. Lessons have not been
learned. Countless people still live in buildings with hazardous
cladding. Although I welcome the Building Safety Act and its good
intentions, progress has just been too painfully slow. During
covid we saw how fast the Government can move when they need to,
in stark contrast to their slowness in setting up the building
safety fund, which did not even account for the number of people
or blocks affected. Registration took so long and then had to be
extended, still without providing huge amounts of money to
developers. They were then so slow to bring developers to the
table. It is their faults, their mistakes and their errors, but
it is people who are paying the price.
For more than three years since I was elected, I have been
supporting thousands of constituents in Putney, Roehampton and
Southfields in 30 blocks with unsafe cladding. Only one—only
one—has had its cladding fully removed. The scaffolding went up
and was up for quite a long time. It has now been removed and the
residents are now in a safe building, but in all the other blocks
either the cladding is untouched and they do not know when it
will be removed, or, for a couple of blocks, the scaffolding is
up and the cladding is being removed. But why, six years on, has
there been so little work? I speak to constituents constantly who
are furious that their cladding has still not been removed, and
that reflects the situation up and down the country.
Just this week I had a meeting with residents, developers and
managing agents of one of those developments. The residents were
asking, “Is our building safe?” All the developers could say was,
“Well, it’s not, not safe.” That is not good enough if you are
living in that building, worried about what will happen at night.
So much money has been spent on waking watch—many residents call
it sleeping watch—which really has not worked. Was it necessary?
In the meeting this week, I heard from one person who said she
could not renegotiate her mortgage because of lenders’ building
safety concerns, so her mortgage costs were going up by £2,000 a
month. Another has had to borrow from friends and family. He,
too, was unable to renegotiate his mortgage because of those
concerns. They could not be given a comfort letter by the
developer, which is one of those that has signed the developer
pledge, because it could not guarantee the work would be done to
a high enough extent for mortgage lenders. People still have the
mental distress of living in what could be unsafe homes; unable
to let them, they cannot move on with their lives—have a normal
life—despite spending so much money on a home. The big questions
they have for the developers are, “When will they even start the
work for my development?” and “When will it finish? When will
this be over?” That is what they are asking.
I want to come on to talk about the actions the Government have
taken, but the trouble is that every action they take and every
question they eventually answer leaves about two more unanswered.
It is not acceptable that after all these years, I must
still—with many other Members, such as my hon. Friend the Member
for Hammersmith (), who has done so much to
campaign on this issue—come back to the Chamber. What will happen
to the vast majority of people living in social housing who have
still not had sprinklers retrofitted in their blocks? As Inside
Housing reported, fewer than 20% of high rise social housing
blocks have been fitted with sprinklers and only 12% with fire
alarms. Instead, there needs to be work, block by block, with the
residents of those blocks on what needs to happen to keep them
safe.
What will happen to the 140,000 leaseholders in England who are
living in mid-rise buildings with “life safety” fire risks? There
has been no update on the medium-rise remediation fund since the
pilot scheme was launched for only 60 blocks. What will happen to
the unknown numbers of people who live in buildings under 11
metres with lethal cladding still on them, which likely house
disabled residents, not to mention the unresolved issues that
leaseholders have had with EWS1 forms? What will happen to
leaseholders who have non-cladding defects, but cannot afford the
£15,000 spending cap in London or the £10,000 spending cap
outside London? What will happen to people living in the almost
12,000 buildings with non-ACM flammable cladding? Why did the
Government water down the personal emergency evacuation plans for
disabled people, and go against the recommendations of the
inquiry? I am glad that the personal emergency evacuation plans
were mentioned by the Secretary of State, but there are so many
more questions about when it will be actioned. Will the Minister
enact the Financial Conduct Authority’s recommendations on
spiralling insurance costs, which were also mentioned in the
debate? That is a huge issue for many of my constituents. Many
leaseholders are suffering and even going bankrupt. They face
increases of over 500% on their insurance costs. What will happen
to those people? Will they be forgotten, or do the Government
have a plan?
Without robust and swift enforcement, the Building Safety Act
2022 is toothless. Will the Secretary of State say why a deadline
was not put in place for when developers have to remove their
cladding, rather than the vague ask of “as soon as reasonably
practicable”? Is there any plan to have a deadline? Will the
developers who signed the pledge, which is welcome, be given a
final deadline? Will residents know when they are likely to be
out of the nightmare they are facing? Developers just seem to be
dragging their feet while costs are rising. The Secretary of
State mentioned a legal duty on developers who signed the pledge
to get on with remediation. It would be far better if that
“getting on with it” was given an actual date, which would focus
their minds, help release so much of the concern and worry, bring
down insurance costs and provide the comfort that mortgage
lenders say they need.
The Department has only shared details on threatening to take one
developer to court if it does not agree to remediation works. I
think the Secretary of State said there may be two more in
process, but whether it is one or three that is such a small
number. What serious consequences are there currently for the
countless other developers who have refused to sign the
remediation contract or have delayed works? Can the Minister
state how often the building safety regulator will call in the
accountable person and what the enforcement will be?
As the Secretary of State said, Kingspan, Arconic and
Saint-Gobain are the manufacturers whose cladding was installed
in Grenfell Tower. It is still going on many other buildings. I
am glad action is being taken, but they still have not paid a
single penny towards remediation costs. As their profits soar,
taxpayers are footing the bill of their negligence to the tune of
£5 billion. Enforcement needs to be more than just a letter
asking them to pay. Where is the accountability? What is the hold
up? Where is the justice?
I am glad that the voice of social housing tenants has been
mentioned, because that is at the heart of the issue. That
includes temporary accommodation tenants who often have very
little voice They do not know how long they will be placed for.
They do not know where to go to have their say. Often, additional
work is not done by councils to enable them to have a voice, yet
they may be raising the very issues, the equivalent of which were
being raised by Grenfell residents before the tragedy. Their
voice needs to be heard. Government support should be built into
the system to reward councils that give their social housing
tenants, including temporary accommodation tenants, a voice that
leads to actual change. Additional work and support is needed to
ensure those tenants know their voice can be heard, but they need
to be listened to. If that lesson of Grenfell is not learned, we
may see more tragedies that could have been stopped.
Grenfell was not an isolated incident, but the result of decades
of unfettered deregulation of our safety. Our hospitals are
crumbling. Our homes are riddled with toxic mould and lethal
cladding. One-fifth of all firefighters have been axed. A year
before Grenfell, the Conservatives voted against making homes fit
for human habitation. The truth is that it took the tragedies of
Grenfell and baby Awaab’s death from mould for the Government to
even think about improving safety standards. Previously, I have
called for a Minister for mould, because of so many cases I know
of where families’ health has been put at risk from the mould
they suffer in their homes. The pace and scope of action has been
woefully inadequate and consequently there is very little to
prevent another tragedy happening again. That terrifies me.
My constituents are exhausted. Campaigners on cladding are
exhausted. I am exhausted. Grenfell United is continuing on
bravely, but their justice needs to be seen. The legacy of
Grenfell, the tragic deaths of 72 wonderful lives, must be
justice and certainty that this will never happen again. How has
this not been sorted out six years on? It will go down in history
as one of the great failings of this Government. All my
constituents want is to live in a home that is safe, to buy a
home that they know is safe, to be able to sell that home if they
need to, and not to have to pay for the mistakes of others. My
final question to the Minister is this: is that too much to
ask?
Mr Deputy Speaker ( )
Order. We are about to come to the winding-up speeches. Following
the conclusion of this debate, there will be a statement on Iran
from the Foreign Secretary. Any Members wishing to question the
Foreign Secretary on his statement should make their way to the
Chamber now.
2.10pm
(Liverpool, Wavertree)
(Lab)
May I first associate myself with the comments of the Secretary
of State in welcoming the families and friends of those involved
in the Grenfell tragedy, and the survivors, who are in the Public
Gallery today?
It is a privilege to respond to this debate on behalf of His
Majesty’s Opposition. As has already been said, Opposition
Members were disappointed that no time was afforded for a debate
nearer to the time of the anniversary of the Grenfell tragedy
back in June, but I thank all Members who have contributed to the
important debate that we have had this afternoon. We have heard
several excellent speeches dealing with both the circumstances
leading up to and surrounding the Grenfell fire and its wider
ramifications—those ramifications being the trauma that survivors
live with each and every day, and also the trauma experienced by
the families and friends of the victims and those who reside in
the wider community.
In one of the richest boroughs of our capital, what the Grenfell
fire shone a light on was rampant and unchecked inequality, and,
alongside that, a housing crisis which to this day remains
unaddressed, with too many of our people in homes that are
uninhabitable and dangerous—and, lest we forget, with people
still on social housing waiting lists, waiting for a place to
call their own. In the aftermath of tragedy and the loss of human
life, we can only begin to remedy the sense of loss and human
suffering with accountability, truth and justice, and, most
important, by vowing never to bear witness to a repetition of the
events that unfolded on 14 June 2017, and vowing never again to
lose a two-year-old boy like Awaab Ishak—who died because the
social housing provider would not act on the complaints from his
family—to the scourge of damp and mould.
The hon. Member for Glasgow South West () was right to say that the
scale of the trauma from Grenfell was unprecedented. He was also
right to speak of the need for health and wellbeing services to
be maintained. My hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith () spoke movingly about the
important issue of social landlords not receiving the same amount
of support as leaseholders. In his usual knowledgeable fashion,
he also spoke about the crisis across the design sector and the
lack of regulation, the financial pressures on social landlords,
and the existential threat posed by those factors.
I welcomed the contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for
Putney (), especially when she
compared the speed with which the Government had moved during the
covid crisis with the slowness of progress in this area, and
referred to the many unanswered questions. She spoke of the need
to reduce insurance costs and the assurances required by mortgage
lenders, and it was a poignant moment when she also spoke of the
need for those in temporary accommodation to have a voice.
All those Members made earnest contributions to the debate, and I
thank them for that, because, after all, these matters are too
important, too central to human dignity, not to be afforded time
in this place—or, indeed, the corridors of power in Whitehall.
The community of Grenfell need answers, and they deserve answers.
Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich
(), I was unable to join in
the recent Grenfell walk, but I echo his observation that there
was a real sense of anger and frustration this year. As we know,
at the end of the Grenfell walks the scale of human loss is
painfully brought home as the name of each one of the 72 men,
women and children who perished is called out to those who are
present.
Of course we await the outcome of the Grenfell inquiry, as we
must, but I hear those cries of vexation, those calls for
justice. Opposition Members eagerly anticipate the contents of
the inquiry’s final report, and look forward to our institutions
acting on its recommendations and delivering the three key tenets
that the community expects: accountability, truth and
justice.
When it comes to decisively and markedly improving standards in
social housing and ensuring that all buildings are safe, there is
still much to be done, although, as has been said, progress has
been made over the past 12 months in improving the quality of
social housing. Opposition Members wanted the Social Housing
(Regulation) Bill to be strengthened further, but we worked with
the Government to ensure its rapid passage through this place.
What happens next will be pivotal to cementing the difference
that the legislation should make. The Government have that
responsibility and the social housing sector bears its
responsibility, too. The National Housing Federation and the
Chartered Institute of Housing shone a spotlight on this issue in
their report entitled “The Better Social Housing Review”. The
sector must act swiftly on the report’s seven recommendations,
not least the first, which states:
“Every housing association, and the sector…should refocus on
their core purpose and deliver against it.”
The Opposition recognise that progress has been made in other
areas, particularly building safety, but it remains too slow for
far too many. As has been pointed out today, some leaseholders
have been given legal protection, some developers have entered
into a legal agreement to remediate unsafe buildings that they
either constructed or refurbished, and a small number of lenders
have agreed to offer mortgages on blocks with safety issues, but
ultimately that is entirely inadequate. Remediation work has been
painstaking and laborious, and has not even begun in too many
instances. Those who have walked around any of our major cities
containing high-rise blocks over the last few years will have
seen shells of apartment blocks, which remain to this day. The
cladding was quickly removed, but what now for the people and
families at the heart of this story? Evidence suggests that only
a small proportion of leaseholders in unsafe buildings have seen
remediation works begin, while a far larger proportion have no
identified date for the commencement of works and no estimated
timescale for their completion. Our people deserve better.
The Government have not finished the job and we urge them to
deliver the change that many are still crying out for. They must
step up and look at this entire agenda in the round. The Fire
Brigades Union is right to condemn them for the fact that in
England there are currently fewer fire safety inspectors who are
competent to carry out audits and serve enforcement notices than
there were in the year after the Grenfell Tower fire. Why is
that?
I also ask the Government to heed the calls of the Local
Government Association, which is saying very clearly that
councils and fire and rescue services need clarity on what is
expected of them as regulators alongside the Building Safety
Regulator. A significant amount of secondary legislation still
needs to be approved by Parliament to implement the new building
safety regime and, of course, effective delivery of that new
regime depends on adequate resources for both councils and fire
and rescue services. I would welcome updates on that from the
Government.
Good-quality, safe homes are the bedrock of human dignity.
Housing must never take life; rather, it should preserve the
sanctity of life. Our people should be allowed to grow, flourish
and experience a life well lived, but for too long, the opposite
has been the case.
2.18pm
The Minister of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and
Communities ()
It is a pleasure to conclude the debate on behalf of the
Government.
Six years on—as the powerful and moving contributions to the
debate have illustrated—the still unimaginable events of 14 June
2017 continue to demand searching answers from us as a country
about who we are and who we aspire to be. They reaffirm the
unshakeable commitment across this House to those most affected:
the commitment to provide long-term support for recovery and the
rebuilding of shattered lives, and to provide a legacy worthy of
the 72 men, women and children who lost their lives. We honour
their memory, and the courage and dignity of the bereaved and the
survivors in the Grenfell community. I am pleased to see them
represented here today; it was humbling and a privilege to have a
conversation with a few of them before I came to the Chamber.
Their quest for truth and justice and their campaigning, in the
interests of others, to reform systems that so grievously failed
them is humbling and inspiring in equal measure.
As we have heard, the issues raised by those in the Grenfell
Tower community had been present for many years. Their calls for
change went unanswered and their concerns were ignored. They were
failed by the institutions and mechanisms developed to support
and protect them. As the Secretary of State has said, we are
determined to learn from the past so that no community ever again
suffers as they have. More than anything, that must mean people
being safe in their homes.
As the Minister responsible for housing, I am aware of the heavy
debt we owe the Grenfell community. Over the past year, that has
involved making homes with the most dangerous cladding safer,
protecting leaseholders from unfair and punitive remediation
costs, getting those responsible to face up to their financial
and moral responsibilities, and fundamentally overhauling and
strengthening the entire building safety system.
The Grenfell community has also rightly kept up the pressure on
my Department to ensure that we never again ignore the voices of
people living in social housing, and that it provides the safe,
decent homes and respectful, good-quality services that they
expect and deserve. Awaab Ishak’s tragic death underlined the
urgency of that work, which we are taking forward through the
Social Housing (Regulation) Bill, amended to include Awaab’s
law—new requirements for social landlords to address hazards such
as damp and mould within a fixed timeframe.
There is, of course, much more to do, and I do not underestimate
the toll that six long years of waiting for the truth and for
justice to be done has taken on the people of North Kensington.
Like them, we keenly await the publication of the Grenfell Tower
inquiry’s final report—we have already begun implementing
recommendations in the phase 1 report—and the outcome of the
ongoing Met police investigation. We also look forward to seeing
a fitting and lasting memorial delivered at the Grenfell Tower
site through the Grenfell Tower Memorial Commission, working in
partnership with the community. I join the Secretary of State in
paying tribute to the commission’s work. However, beyond truth
and justice, the greatest legacy we can deliver is a continued
commitment to listening, learning and acting to secure a better
future for all—a profound commitment that I know is shared across
the House.
Let me turn to some of the points raised by hon. Members in the
debate. We heard from the hon. Member for Hammersmith (), from the SNP spokes-
person, the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (), and from the hon. Member
for Putney (), as well as from the two
Labour spokespeople, the hon. Members for Greenwich and Woolwich
() and for Liverpool,
Wavertree (). I thank them all for their
contributions.
We recognised that sprinklers could play a greater role, so we
lowered the threshold for the provision of sprinkler systems in
new blocks of flats from 30 metres to 11 metres in 2020,
following a consultation on sprinklers and fire safety measures,
through changes to approved document B. Sprinklers are only one
of a range of measures that can be provided in buildings, and
building owners are already bound by a clear obligation to ensure
that existing buildings have a suitable and sufficient fire risk
assessment in place. Retrofitting sprinklers is not always the
right option; other fire safety measures, such as measures
recommended by phase 1 of the Grenfell Tower inquiry, may be more
appropriate for an individual building.
I was asked how people living in buildings under 11 metres can be
helped when they face expensive bills for remediation. It is the
ultimate responsibility of building owners to ensure that
residential buildings of all heights are safe, and the consensus
is that the level of risk tallies with the height of the
building. The risk to life is usually lower in buildings under 11
metres in height, which are very unlikely to need costly
remediation to make them safe. Indeed, a fire risk appraisal of
external walls conducted in accordance with the PAS 9980
principles will often find that lower-cost mitigations are more
appropriate in low-rise buildings. Nevertheless, my Department
has committed to looking at buildings under 11 metres where
remediation costs are involved on a case-by-case basis. We think
that is the right approach.
We have banned ACM cladding on all new builds. At the end of May
2023, 96% of all identified high-rise residential and publicly
owned buildings in England had either completed or started work
to remove and replace unsafe cladding, and 450 buildings—92%—no
longer have unsafe ACM, with 84% having completed ACM remediation
work. We continue to keep up the pressure to ensure that that job
is finished.
Is there a date by which the Minister would like to reach 100%
removal of ACM cladding?
Of course, we would all like to see that happen much more
quickly. That is why we are continuing with the legislative
measures that we have set out, including the Building Safety Act
and all the other work that goes behind that, as the Secretary of
State said.
I was asked about social housing regulation. The direction of
travel is clear: residents have spoken and reform is coming to
the social housing sector. We are committed to implementing the
new regulatory regime enabled by the Social Housing (Regulation)
Bill. I thank Opposition Members for assisting us with passing
the Bill. The new regime will be implemented in 2024. The
Secretary of State will consult on any directions to the
regulator, and the regulator will then need to consult on its
proposed consumer standards. That is just part of a wider
programme of work to drive up the quality of social housing and
reduce the number of non-decent rented homes by 50% by 2030. That
includes tougher regulation and a strengthened housing ombudsman
service, a review of the decent homes standard, and providing
residents with more performance information.
Mr Deputy Speaker, 72 months since the Grenfell community lost 72
family members, friends and neighbours, the enormity of what
happened that night in June 2017 remains inescapable. Those who
never made it out of the tower paid with their lives, in the
homes where they should have been most safe, for collective
failings, including on the part of the Government, for which we
have apologised. Six years on, those left behind continue to wait
for answers and for those responsible to be held to account, not
just today but every day, as they count the cost of precious
lives cut short—six years of missing seeing loved ones grow up or
grow old; missed life milestones; meals unshared; ordinary,
everyday memories unmade. No apologies—no words—are enough to
right those wrongs.
As the Secretary of State said, we will be judged not on our
words but on our actions—actions to make homes safer and greener;
to improve social housing and amplify the voices of residents; to
make sure that those responsible step up or face the
consequences; to provide long-term support for the Grenfell
community for as long as it takes; to learn from the past, get to
the truth and see justice done; and to ensure that everyone in
our society has a safe, secure place to live that they are truly
proud to call home. Let that be Grenfell’s abiding legacy.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered building safety and social
housing.
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